devi | small petty rant

Going off on a tangent from stuff discussed in the 101 Tasks comments:

I've never quite got the point of people telling me things - clubs, scenes, subcultures, conventions, festivals - aren't as good as they used to be. This seems to have been a running theme in my life. I always seem to catch on to things late. Then someone pops up and says "It was so much better when people could bring their own drink." Or "All they care about these days is packing in the punters." "It was so much better when people got off with each other at parties." "Goth is dead." "SF is dead." "It's got so *shudder* commercial." "Here's a whole bloody filksong about how much better it used to be when we were young and set the world on fire."

I realise you wish to help and enlighten, but honestly, what difference is it supposed to make to me? Am I supposed to nod and say "well, okay, I won't go then. Thanks for saving me the trouble"? But experience has taught me otherwise. I always do the thing anyway and, guess what, since I wasn't around for the wonderful days of amazingness and don't know what I'm missing, I usually end up having a great time.

But don't mind me, I'm in a vile mood. Everything sucks*. I may have to break out the Diana Wynne Jones.

* edit - things that don't suck: my house, my friends, Battlestar Galactica

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I find this one particularly puzzling. Are these people not watching Doctor Who, or reading Iain M Banks?

I don't understand it either, but there's been an "Is SF dead?" panel at just about every convention I've ever been to, and on any convention program I've ever seen, however old.

The most recent worry I was aware of seemed to be that "slipstream" writers were trying to merge SF with the mainstream. But I'm sure

coalescent could inform us what the real most recent SF health panic has been...

Mmmmm, I suppose I can vaguely see that argument, but it sounds to me like a ghetto mentality. I'm glad there are SF books coming through which don't have irrelevant spaceships on the cover, but aren't the work of dabbling non-SF writers either.
I suppose this is one of the reasons why I tend to avoid 'fandoms'...

Fandoms are rubbish these days compared with what they used to be like... (probably)

Rubbish is rubbish compared to what it used to be like.

And nostalgia isn't as good as it once was.

Complaining about things being less good then they were has definitely had better days.

Doctor Who isn't and hasn't ever been (a few odd New Adventures aside) SF.

Only if you're using a definition which excludes the vast majority of other science fiction too. Indeed, the afterword to the David Brin graphic novel I read last night had him complaining about the misnaming of the field for much that reason.
It's ultimately as pointless and unprofitable a complaint as those who try to define zombie films to exclude 28 Days Later.

small petty rant

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